Whelen Springs
by Nanatsusaya
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate the legend of a young servant girl murdered by her lover's father at a popular Halloween attraction. Dean has a good time, despite the outcome. Sam wishes they'd skipped the job.


_Whelen Springs, Arkansas_

_October 30, 11:25 AM_

"Dean, are you sure you want to bother with this? Apparently there's no record of there ever being a servant named Marie. Besides, the legend says her body was dumped in the river not buried on the property." Sam snapped his laptop shut, unable to find any more evidence that would confirm or deny what they already knew. The motel air conditioner was broken and the heat was making him irritable.

"Well…" Dean hemmed and hawed for a moment, clearly trying to come up with a plausible reason to go anyway. He looked marginally less miserable than Sam felt, or maybe he was better at ignoring it. "We've looked into less."

The old fallback logic, Sam should have expected that. He let his head fall backward and let out of a frustrated huff of air. Eighty-five degrees in October was indecent. The _end_ of October, at that. "…You just want to see if they have pumpkin pie."

Dean shrugged, looking down at the floor. He was on his feet already, cramming on his shoes. "You coming or are you gonna stay here and slow-cook for the rest of the day?"

_12:05 PM_

Dean figured historic farms were alright, but turning them into Halloween attractions was a much better idea. The Whelen Springs Haunted Farm was one of the better ones he'd seen. The restaurant did have pumpkin pie, along with every over thing he loved about the season. He insisted they eat lunch before investigating, which he deemed completely worth the trip, even if the job turned out to be a bust. Sam was clearly unimpressed with the amount of corny Halloween décor and general scent of livestock pervading the entire area.

"Dude, your face is gonna freeze like that." Dean pulled an exaggerated imitation of his brother's frown as they looked over a colorful map of the farm.

"Shut up."

Dean grinned and landed an index finger on one specific spot on the map. "There's a corn maze, you used to love those when you were little. You had such a bad sense of direction, though." He received a flat stare in response. "Come on, Sammy, lighten up a little. I'm starting to think you're allergic to fun."

"Halloween isn't supposed to be about fun."

"Save the lecture." Dean sighed and pushed the map toward his brother. "You can have that, I'm going to wander and maybe have some unnecessary fun while I'm at it. Don't get lost in the corn maze again."

_12:47 PM_

After Dean disappeared in the crowd, Sam stomped off in the opposite direction. He hated Halloween, but at least the weather was probably five degrees cooler with the breeze outside. A group of middle school age children darted in front of him, chattering about who would be brave enough to go in the "haunted barn". Sam rolled his eyes after they passed, idly wondering exactly what half-assed horrors awaited them in the colorful wooden structure across the path. The map had been tossed in the trash as soon as Dean was out of sight, but Sam discovered he had ended up at the corn maze anyway. The grayed, tatty fence looked approximately ancient and the stalks were slightly shorter than he remembered corn being. Fortunately, the maze didn't seem particularly popular with the current crowd, and he was able to pull out the EMF meter without suspicious any stares.

The information he was able to find about the farm had been vague at best, and it lacked specification on where the ghost was usually seen. Oral legend, probably, that made its way onto the internet. The EMF was doing nothing, and Sam figured he was probably halfway through the maze. He turned down a dead-end accidentally, surprising two teenagers engaged in ungracefully sucking each other's faces off.

"Uhh….sorry," Sam muttered and turned sharply away, palming the EMF meter as best he could to hide it from view. He picked a different route—another dead end—and a third try the same. "…Great." Sam realized he was completely turned around, and without visibility over the stalks he wasn't entirely sure where in the maze he was located. Apparently it was more complicated than it looked on the map.

_1:23 PM_

None of the buildings had thus far yielded anything of interest to the hunt, and Dean decided to stop at the snack barn for a beer. He leaned against the counter and made small talk with the old man behind the counter while he figured what to do next.

"You got a coupla little ones running around somewhere?" the man asked as he passed Dean his drink.

"…Oh yeah. They love this place. Brought them last year and they didn't want to go home." Dean smiled in what he hoped was a bored father sort of way.

The man chuckled. "I hear ya. My grandchildren live up at the old farmhouse and they still never get tired of it."

"There's still a house on the property?"

"Oh yes. My son and his wife bought the whole place on a whim in 1982. They tried farming for a while, but tourism brings more money. They been trying to restore the old place, get it on the state historic register." So, the Haunted Farm buildings were new, but the originals were still standing. Finally, real information.

"I heard this place was haunted. Any truth to it?"

"Well, I haven't seen it myself, but the grandkids say they seen a ghost up in the old barn. I ain't from here originally, but I heard from some local folks that a serving girl was killed most violently back in the twenties. They say she was having an affair with the master's eldest son. He refused to marry her and the girl tried to poison the whole family, but only the two sisters died of it. The father murdered her when he found out. Messy business, if you ask me."

Dean downed the rest of his beer and tossed an extra dollar on the counter with a smile. "Huh, interesting. Thanks for the distraction."

_1:35 PM_

Sam ended up backtracking to find his way out of the maze, retracing his own oversized tracks in the soft dirt. Frustrated with himself for being so directionally challenged without a horizon and frustrated with the job for eluding him, Sam shuffled to the snack barn in the hopes of finding a beer. Instead of taking a table, he settled at the counter and ordered. The old man smiled as he passed over the plastic cup. "Kids getting to you?"

"What?" Sam had been fervently hoping he would be left to his drink in peace.

"We get a lot of frazzled young fathers in here in the afternoon. You're the second today."

Sam tried to return the smile, but it came out as more of a mild grimace. "Uh…is that so?"

The old man chuckled. "That one's on the house, son. I raised three children myself. Best choice I ever made, but boy it wasn't easy."

They both fell silent. Sam thought about calling his brother to see if anything had come up. Instead he sent a brief text just to let Dean know that he hadn't found any evidence of the ghost yet. The small building was air-conditioned, and he was reluctant to move. Sam ordered a second beer when the first one started getting low.

_1:42 PM_

Now, this was much more like it. The barn was a rich weathered gray, a few flecks of rust red along the edge of the doorframe the only indication that it had ever been kept up. The current owners had trimmed the weeds around the foundations, but it appeared they had not yet started renovating it. Not too distant stood the house, but Dean figured he was far enough away that if anyone were home they wouldn't see him enter the barn. The door was unlocked. Dean was momentarily overpowered by the smell of molding hay and dust that rolled out when he pulled it open. Clearly no one had bothered to air the place out in years.

Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, though the cavernous space inside was only dimly lit by a hole in the ceiling. Some old farm tools littered the floor, including a small tractor that was so corroded it probably would have disintegrated if he had tried to touch it. The ladder to his left looked to be free of rot and sturdy enough to hold his weight if he was quick about climbing. Disturbances of the ground Dean found were sometimes easier to see from above, and the hayloft was probably high enough to see the entire floor.

Dean could only assume that the splintering sound under his heel as he stepped on the edge was a bad sign, but the old wood didn't give immediately. He blew out a slow breath and took a few more tentative steps before turning to look down. The new perspective revealed nothing and Dean entertained the notion that the old man had been pulling his leg. There was a shallow depression on the far side of the dirt floor that might be worth examining, but he didn't have high hopes. At least, until the air dropped a few degrees and he could almost feel a preternatural puff of breath on the back of his neck.

"Why won't you look at me?" The voice was female and softly pleading. Dean barely had time to mentally kick himself for not stopping back at the car for a shotgun before he was pushed. His phone might have been helpful too. Truthfully, however, he had only half expected the story to have something substantial to back it.

"Whoa, lady, I'm not who you think I am." Reasoning with a murder victim was a stretch, but he didn't see any other options. Dean turned to face the ghost after he regained his balance. Marie, if the name hadn't been mixed up over the years, was a slight woman in a plain dress, her piled hair straggling across her face and down her neck. She looked relatively harmless, but the story he had heard told otherwise.

"Why won't you look at me?" Her eyes seemed unfocused, and Dean was sure Marie was unaware that he was looking at her. If he hadn't already been pushed once Dean would have figured her for a death echo.

Unsure of what else to do, he started inching back toward the ladder. "I am looking at you, you stupid bitch," he muttered. His foot found the first rung before she rushed him with the all force of a quiet breeze. Dean lost his balance in surprise and the rotten wood near the edge of the loft finally crumbled under his weight.

_2:43 PM_

Sam had been looking for his brother for a half and hour. The place wasn't all that big, and he'd already circled twice. Dean wasn't answering his phone, though out of spite, forgetfulness, or something unforeseen he didn't know. If Dean was playing a joke on him it was in poor taste.

Past the pumpkin patch he could see some other buildings partially hidden by a stand of trees. Where the owners lived, he figured. It was possible Dean had gone there to talk to the family, and he set off across the field. He reached the graying barn first, realizing uncomfortably that he was unarmed and Dean probably was as well. They hadn't seriously expected something to come of the legend, but Sam was having second thoughts now that he could guess the age of the real farm buildings. Before he could reach the door, a small whirlwind burst through in the form of five terrified children. They shot past him, but he managed to stall one by looming in front of the boy. Sam recognized the kid, and realized they were the same group that had run into him near the corn maze. Haunted barn, indeed.

"What's wrong?" Sam asked the ashen-faced boy trying to sidestep him.

"De…dead body," the boy stuttered out barely audible, his breath stolen away by fear.

"What?" Sam replied sharply, but the boy darted away before he could inquire further. The children were old enough not to confuse "dead body" and "ghost" no matter how scared.

While he was half optimistic it was a prank, Sam could still feel his heart hammer a little harder. The idea that what the kids had seen would be his brother never completely crossed Sam's mind until he saw Dean sprawled awkwardly on the floor. The sight was a jolt, and he must have run the last few steps though he couldn't later remember doing so. The light was dim and unhelpful; Sam tried to calm himself with the knowledge that it was highly unlikely an eight-year-old would understand vital signs enough to recognize death. Even in the poor light, Dean was clearly breathing though his open mouth, little puffs of dust moving away from where his face was pressed against the hard floor.

"Dean?" Sam rested a hand on his brother's shoulder, unsure if he should move him or not. Quickly, he took a glance around the barn, unsettled by the abnormally still atmosphere. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary yet, but Sam wanted to leave as quickly as possible. He tried tapping Dean's cheek with the other hand. "Hey, come on. Wake up."

For a few horrible seconds, Sam considered the possibility that Dean was so badly injured that he couldn't wake up, but then a weak groan reached his ears. Most of the muscles in his chest unclenched, and he was able to let got of the breath he'd been holding. "Dean, you okay?"

Dean's eyes fluttered open and he looked sideways toward Sam's voice. He seemed a little annoyed in a vague, unfocused way. "That bitch knocked me off the ladder," he slurred in reply. There were scraps of wood littering in the ground under the broken edge where Dean had fallen. The distance from the loft to the ground made Sam's stomach turn just imagining.

"Why didn't you tell me you were looking all the way out here?" Thankfully, Dean decided to lie still while Sam looked him over for injuries as best as he could. One arm was trapped under him, though, which didn't seem promising considering the height he'd fallen from.

"Forgot my phone in the car," Dean tested the arm that wasn't trapped, finding it sound enough to start pushing himself upright. "Didn't think anything was gonna happen anyway."

As Sam suspected, the other arm hadn't survived the fall intact, judging from his brother's sharp intake of breath when he tried to use it. Sam grabbed the good one to keep him from pitching right onto his scraped up face again. "Broken?"

"Pretty sure. Ribs too, maybe," Dean hissed. "Fuck." He curled his hand against his chest, and now Sam could see a bit of blood dribbling where the snapped ulna had started breaking through skin.

Sam didn't mean to draw attention to the fact that Dean's bone wasn't where it was supposed to be, but he blurted out the words before he could think twice. "Hoooly crap, your wrist is…kind of poking out."

For a second he thought his brother was going to pass out again, but Dean was clearly forcing himself to ignore it. "…Lovely."

"Uh…I think we should get you to the hospital."

"No, shit." Rarely did Dean agree to see a doctor unless he was in dire amounts of pain or gushing blood from more than one wound. There wasn't all that much blood, so Sam guessed it must have been the former.

_October 31, 10:12 AM_

Dean woke to the sound of the door shutting and his brother's shoes dropping on the floor. His brain felt full of cobwebs and his entire right side was throbbing as the painkillers started wearing off. After a very long and inordinately painful afternoon and evening in the ER the previous day, he felt he deserved to be high as a kite and preferably asleep too for at least another twenty-four hours. "Is it ever possible for you to be quiet coming in the door?" he rasped, holding as still as possible until the thumping in his head subsided.

Sam apologized quietly. The sound of running water followed and Dean waited for the inevitable dip on the edge of the bed when Sam brought him the water and more pills. "I went back early this morning and found the remains. I never saw the ghost, but the job's done."

"Good. You're an idiot for going alone, but good." Dean finally opened his eyes and used his good arm to sit up. "Gimme those."

Sam rolled his eyes and stared until he had downed most of the water, then set the glass aside, seeming satisfied. He set the paper bag he was holding on Dean's lap. "Happy Halloween, by the way. I got you some food and stuff while I was at the farm."

"Thanks, I'm starving." There was pie in a triangular plastic container and a bag of candy corn on top, and a cardboard box with turkey and mashed potatoes with gravy under that. "Mmm-mm, I'm gonna miss this place when we leave."

"Ugh, I'm not. The whole job was a pain in the ass."

"I guess Marie wasn't exactly a barrel of monkeys, but…" Dean paused as he caught his brother's carefully blank expression. Sam turned away, and he could have sworn his cheeks were coloring. "You went to the corn maze and got lost, didn't you?"

"…No…"


End file.
